A crane on top of a high-rise apartment building in Manhattan’s Billionaire’s 
Row went out of control due to strong winds the evening of Oct. 29 sending debris from the under-construction building raining down on the street below. According to a report in The New York Times, the crane, which was on top of a Midtown building under construction on West 57th Street near Sixth Avenue, spun wildly in the wind and the rain.
Emergency workers had to seal off several blocks as firefighters made their way to the building’s upper floors. A preliminary investigation by the New York City Department of Buildings showed that a so-called headache ball at the end of a hoist cable had hit the building’s upper floors causing large sections of glass and metal debris to fall off and onto the street. Thankfully, no one was injured in this crane accident.
Scary, But No Injuries
The Department of Buildings said the crane was secure, but was “weathervaning” in the wind. The agency was still investigating the incident. The Times reports that in July, a metal tool had fallen from the same construction site and ripped through a tent outside a West 58th Street restaurant. It ended up shattering a glass table and narrowly missed a server who was standing by.
On Oct. 29, glass and metal crashed to the ground as the tower crane began to spin around causing a loose cable to collide with the building. Following the accident, the Department of Buildings stopped work on the construction project except for the tasks needed to keep the site safe and issued a violation to the contractor for failing to safeguard the area. While buildings officials said the crane was not in danger of collapsing and that the weather-vane motion it made in the wind was appropriate in such conditions, the incident reflected a “serious safety lapse.” It was indeed fortunate that no one was injured in this incident.
Incidents Involving Cranes and Debris
With the huge residential construction boom in New York, which has continued even through much of the pandemic, large cranes have become fixtures of the city’s landscape. Even as officials have adopted strict regulations for operating the machines, they can fail – especially when negligence (carelessness) is involved. This most recent incident came eight years to the day after a crane snapped off another luxury high-rise being built down the street.
In 2015, a worker was killed and four others were injured when a crane collapsed during construction of the No. 7 train extension on Manhattan’s Far West Side. In 2008, there were two fatal crane collapses. One killed seven people and the other killed two. There have also been fatal incidents involving falling debris from buildings. Last December, a 60-year-old architect was killed by a piece of debris that fell from a 17-story building and struck her on the head when she was walking in Manhattan.
Contacting an Experienced Lawyer
In such cases, injured bystanders or passersby can seek compensation for damages including, but not limited to, medical expenses, lost wages and benefits, cost of hospitalization, rehabilitation, permanent injury, disabilities, past and future pain and suffering, etc. Families of deceased victims may be able to file a wrongful death lawsuit seeking compensation for damages such as lost future income, funeral costs, medical expenses, pain and suffering, etc. Liable parties may include construction companies, general contractors, sub-contractors, property and building owners/managers, manufacturers of defective products, etc.
Whether you are a construction worker who has suffered injuries at a construction site or a bystander or pedestrian who has been injured by falling debris, the experienced New York personal injury attorneys at the Law Offices of Kenneth A. Wilhelm can help you better understand your legal rights and options, and also fight hard to recover just compensation for you.
Our law firm recovered $3,375,576 for a construction worker (an undocumented immigrant) who was injured on the job – one of the highest construction case settlements in New York that year. Also, one of our clients obtained a verdict for $43,940,000 and another of our clients got a verdict for $23,500,000, both in medical malpractice cases.
Please contact us TOLL FREE 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 1-800-WORK-4-YOU (1-800-967-5496). WE CAN EVEN COME TO YOU. There is no attorneys’ fee unless we recover money for you. We can also help with personal injury and medical malpractice cases in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, or Florida. If you have been injured in any of the 50 U.S. states, please call us and we will try to help you with your case.
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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/30/nyregion/crane-accident-midtown-manhattan-debris.html